Michael Connelly – LAPD Detective Hieronymus Bosch

American author of detective novels and other crime fiction

Who is Michael Connelly?

Michael Joseph Connelly was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on July 21, 1956. He is the second son of a property developer, W. Michael Connelly, and a homemaker, Mary Connelly.

Connelly became interested in crime and mystery after moving to Fort Lauderdale, Florida with his family at age 16. It was during this time, while walking home from work as a dishwasher, that he witnessed a criminal disposing of a gun in a hedge. After investigating, and reporting the crime to the local police department, Connelly grew interested and impressed with the idea of detective work.

Journalism studies at the University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications

Connelly attended the University of Florida in Gainesville, intending to follow his fathers’ footsteps in construction management. Not having achieved the required grades as expected, Connelly decided to transfer to the University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications after seeing a screening of the film The Long Goodbye (1973).

Michael Connelly’s Journalism career

Connelly started his career as a crime-beat writer at Daytona Beach News-Journal and later at Lauderdale News and Sun-Sentinel in 1981. He spent several years interviewing survivors of the 1985 Delta Flight 191 plane crash, which led him to be nominated as a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Further to this, he received a position at the Los Angeles Times as a crime writer and moved t California in 1987.

3 years later while at the Los Angeles Times, Connelly wrote his first published novel, The Black Echo (1992). This won him the Mystery Writers of America‘s Edgar Award for the best first novel after being published by Little, Brown, and Company. This book was the first one featuring Los Angeles Police Department Detective Hieronymus “Harry” Bosch (named after the Dutch painter Hieronymus Bosch). He went on to write 2 further novels featuring Bosch:

The Concrete Blonde (1994)

The Last Coyote (1995)

Michael Connelly as a Full-time Novelist

After turning to writing full-time, Connelly wrote his first book not featuring Bosch in 1996. The Poet featured a new character, Jack McEvoy. In 1997 he further expanded with Blood Work, about an FBI agent Terry McCaleb. Blood Work was made into a film in 2002, directed by Clint Eastwood.

Michael Connelly continued writing further sequels featuring the various characters. He even wrote some featuring his various character’s lives being integrated by solving crimes together. A Darkness More Than Night was published in 2001, in which Connelly united Bosch and McCaleb to solve a crime together.

Michael Connelly’s Personal life

Michael Connelly met his wife, Linda McCaleb, while in college. They got married in April 1984. Together with their daughter, they moved to Tampa Bay, Florida in 2001.